PC/Laptop Specs That Won't Overheat [SOLVED]

[Subluxation]

So as many people have already said and experienced, I am so excited that CoH is back, even if unstable and temporary. I definitely want to take advantage of this opportunity to play again.

 

I managed to play for about 2 hours today and get a tanker to level 4 while doing a few missions. On a MacBook air! Definitely not optimal, but the game ran fine, no lagging, little rubberbanding, etc. I think I set it to the lowest graphics settings which was what I had to use when I played before anyway.

 

The only issue is that my cpu was reaching temperatures consistently around 200 Fahrenheit (93 Celsius). Again, the game was running fine, I just don't feel comfortable overheating my laptop that much, especially if I get back into playing many hours every day for a few months.

 

The macbook specs are:

MacBook Air (11-inch, Mid 2012)

Processor: 1.7 GHz Intel Core i5

Memory: 4 GB 1600 MHz DDR3

Graphics: Intel HD Graphics 4000 1536 MB

 

I'm looking into getting a gaming laptop anyway, because there are a few games coming out this year and next year I'm excited to play, so I'm probably looking in the ballpark of 800$-1200$. Since it runs fine I'm assuming the memory and cpu are ok, so should I be looking for a better graphics card in a new laptop?

 

What specs in a gaming laptop/pc should I get to reliably run City of Heroes smoothly without overheating, or what have you all been using that runs it fine?

 

Thanks so much for any responses! I'm so excited to jump back into this game and experience it as well as helping to form a new community!

[RubyRed]

Part of the problem might be your computer running it too well. When I first started on Homecoming, I noticed the same thing, where my computer fans would sound like a helicopter and the temperature spiked. I checked fps (/showfps 1) and it was running at 400 fps! All those extra frames obv aren't necessary. So now I cap it at 100 fps, and it keeps the temperatures in check. So I would check first to see if maybe that's why your laptop is overheating. Setting on the lowest graphics would actually make this worse, because you'd get even more fps.

 

If it is the case, you can use the /maxfps command to set an arbitrary limit. If you want it to be permanent, you can add it to the launcher options as -maxfps parameter.

[Subluxation]

So I checked my systems' activity monitor when it was running at 200 degrees Fahrenheit and it said it was using 120% of the cpu, so that might be the culprit.

 

I upped the quality to 'Recommended.' I capped the fps at varying intervals between 30-60fps. 60fps runs fine in a solo mission, the temperature was at 160 degrees Fahrenheit! That's an acceptable temperature for long term gaming in my opinion. When I turn it down to 30fps it stays at 170 degrees in a crowded Atlas Plaza. Not too bad.

 

Capping the fps was very good troubleshooting, so thanks! I think this will be a good temporary fix and I'm comfortable playing for a few hours at a time every day.

 

But moving forward, I assume this won't be optimal for high-level endgame content with a full team if I make it that far. If I do decide to get a gaming computer of sorts would a better processor sort things out? I'd probably still cap the fps, but that's fine. I heard a few things about CoH working the graphics card hard, and that some modern PCs actually don't handle it well?

[Hyperstrike]

Capping the FPS will help keep the CPU and GPU cooler.

 

And yes, CoH DOES whack graphics setup differently than a lot of the games you're used to.

Things like SLI don't really provide the benefit you think it would.  Like it does in other games.

 

A modern, multi-core proc will handle the game just fine.

And a modern NVIDIA/ATI graphics solution in the system will simply burp and scream for more stuff to do.

 

There's also the problem of playing at ultra-high resolutions on a regular (11-15") laptop is something you REALLY don't want to exceed 1920x1080 for (if you even want to play at that resolution.  At 1920x1080, stuff at default 100% size in the game can be unreadable.  Leading to you needing to tweak the UI and increase font sizes.

 

 

 

4K?  On anything less than a 17" system?  Don't do it.  I have 20/20 vision and I'm sorta rueing the decision to go with the 15"  4K screen upgrade.

 

In Windows I'm using screen magnification on both my laptop AND my desktop.  Otherwise I'd go walleyed trying to read anything.

 

Attached is a screenshot of my desktop, down-sampled to 1822x1080 (3x 27" 4K monitors in Portrait mode, fused with NVSurround for a final resolution of 6480x3840).  Showing what a remotely controlled 1920x1080 screen looks like on my machine.

[Subluxation]

Ok, awesome! Thanks for the reassurance! Happy Hero-ing!

[WanderingAries]

Any Mac user (especially if they're using Bootcamp) should have this App.